The Company He Keeps
by X-parrot
Summary: [xover, SG1 10x03 'The Pegasus Project' tag] Dr. Rodney McKay isn't Cam's first choice for an astrophysicist, he knows that before he ever meets the man in person.


A missing scene for SG-1: 10x03, "The Pegasus Project," since it was pretty obvious (to me, anyway) that Mitchell has another conversation with Sheppard that we're not privy to, especially considering that tiny bit when they're on the Odyssey near the end of the ep...

The Company He Keeps  
X-parrot

Dr. Rodney McKay isn't Cam's first choice for an astrophysicist; he knows that before he ever meets the man in person. For one, because he's already got his first choice; and for two, because Sam's worked with the guy before, so the first thing Cam did after the initial briefing was to pull her aside and ask, "So, this McKay, what's he like?"

And Sam hesitated, nose wrinkling in an unconscious display that Mitchell knew better than to think of as cute (regardless of the truth) and said, "Rodney can be...difficult."

_Difficult_, from Samantha Carter, whose watchwords are calm and collected and cooperative, good-working-relationship with anybody, even obnoxious Tok'ra and various evolutionarily advanced know-it-alls; who generally reserves peevishness for such deserving individuals as Ori Priors and System Lords (however many of those are left; too many, as far as SG-1's concerned)...Sam's _difficult_ is tantamount to, "I have recurring fantasies of bashing him in the nose with a five-iron."

So Cam figures this McKay for a real piece of work, even before he goes back over the old mission reports on the trip out to Pegasus. McKay's recommendations, when Teal'c got trapped in the gate buffer on the way back from P3X-116, nearly got the big guy killed--yeah, that doesn't endear him any. On the other hand, by Carter's own admission his contributions were "helpful" when Anubis nearly took out the planet, so that's a point in his favor. Cam's got a soft spot for people who've saved Earth; call him a sucker, but he's partial to his homeworld.

And Sam, over lunch in the Odyssey's commissary, admits, "We really are going to need McKay on this one...and boy, he's going to enjoy that," but she doesn't look resentful; more resignedly amused.

Jackson just nods; he knows the guy, too, had a few weeks' quality time with him down in Antarctica, but now he's too busy practicing his Ancient to volunteer any comment. When Cam asks him later, the archeologist just waves a vague hand behind his files, goes, "Yeah, Dr. McKay, he's good at what he does. Very good. I mean, maybe not Sam-level good, but, yeah, good."

Twenty-seven languages, you'd think he could muster up more than one adjective, but they're only a couple days from Atlantis and Jackson is cross-eyed from all the reading, so Cam cuts him some slack and goes off to spar with a couple Odyssey crew members who could use a little Sodan training. He's spoiled, having Teal'c as a regular partner.

Two days later, they beam down to Atlantis, and at the briefing Cam gets his first impression of McKay, which is that he looks like his file photo, pretty much, except he's got an obnoxious whine that sets Cam's teeth on edge, and the ID shot fails to capture how incredibly smug his smirk can get. Ego doesn't properly develop on film, apparently. The question is, can the guy's brains back it up? Because if so, that'd be something. Cam's got his doubts. There's a high IQ, and then there's the score McKay would need to equal the size of his swelled head.

Either way, not his first choice, but it's not his choice, it's his duty; and besides, Cam's already got the galaxy's top astrophysicist on his team. _And_ she's a cute blonde, and, yes, he's got the best job in the universe, thank you very much. Even if it does entail the occasional assignment with Rodney McKay, PhD, SOB.

Sheppard, though, Cam likes. Classic flyboy: when grounded, the guy's got easygoing down to an art-form, lounging back at his chair at an angle just straight enough not to get himself called on for lack of discipline. His eyes are sharp, though; Cam sees that when they walk out onto the balcony, overlooking the bright, wide, sunlit space that is the Atlantis gateroom. It puts the SGC's claustrophobic silo to shame, but it also makes Cam uncomfortable, pretty and delicate and seemingly ineffectual as a fortress of stained glass. Give him a steel iris and walls of concrete, if the Goa'uld or the Ori are coming.

But Atlantis has survived the Wraith, and space vampires have to land somewhere near snakes-for-brains and renegade angels on the Big List of Intergalactic Bad Guys, so Cam figures there's more to these shimmering fairy-castle towers than meets the eye. And Sheppard jokes about the new paint job, but he's proud, too; Cam can tell. This is Sheppard's home base, one he's nearly died for a couple times, and he doesn't regret it, Cam bets, watching his fellow soldier watch his city.

Officer-to-officer, Sheppard has a few choice words about McKay, helpful advice that Cam takes to heart. The measure of a man is the company he keeps, and the best ruler is hearing what that company has to say. 'Difficult,' Sam had said, and Sheppard's giving him fair warning. Cam's used to working with geniuses, but McKay's no Sam Carter, no Daniel Jackson, all about putting their education and knowledge toward the greater good, heroic as they are brilliant. And Cam didn't force himself through that year of PT hell to babysit a puffed-up physicist with a citrus allergy and an ego problem, no matter how damn smart the guy thinks he is.

But this is his duty, and if he can handle psychotropic corn smugglers and renegade Jaffa, he can put up with a prima donna scientist long enough to save the galaxy.

Besides, for everything Sheppard warns about, there's more he's not saying aloud. Like that Sheppard's had McKay on his team for over two years, and Cam takes Sheppard for the sort of man who doesn't put up with crap if he doesn't have to. Orders are orders, and not everyone's as lucky as Cam when it comes to choosing their own team; but slogging through shit, trials of endurance--that's for the Army, the Marines. He and Sheppard both are Air Force, fly over, fly away; and if McKay was more trouble than he was worth, he wouldn't be going off-world. Not on Sheppard's team.

Sheppard walks off without mentioning any of that, though. And Cam gets the feeling that's deliberate, as deliberate as the seemingly sleepy, sidelong manner Sheppard observed him taking in Atlantis. "Ha, ha, we're actually quite close," McKay says, chuckling nervously and eying Cam with something less than respect, but not smirking anymore, at least. And his anxious tone is a fair lot easier on the ears than his arrogant posturing.

Cam sends the doctor packing, literally, fingers the lemon in his pocket and decides not to tell McKay that it's harmless, non-allergenic rubber. Awful good likeness, though, maybe Japanese; they make great-looking fake food, which wouldn't spoil in the three weeks' trip back from Earth.

And that Sheppard's gone through the trouble of getting hold of such a thing, for what's got to be a mother of a practical joke, that tells Cam something, too.

Before they jet off to the black hole, Cam takes a brief look-around at Atlantis, ending up in the jumper bay. He'd seen an Ancient puddlejumper before, but they look different in their native environs, that unwieldy pseudo-Winnebago contour somehow suited to Atlantis's shining curves and recesses. Round peg in a round hole; they fit. And hey, anything that gets you in the air.

"I could take you up in one," and Cam turns to see Sheppard, kitted up in gear and a flac vest, and a giant standing over his shoulder--that'd be his team member Ronon, Cam guesses, even before Sheppard introduces him. They shake, and Ronon damn near crushes his hand and knows it, from the way he's quietly not-quite-smiling.

Cam stares up at him for a moment, decides that Teal'c could take him. Maybe. Flexes his fingers. Maybe not. Either way, they totally could sell tickets. "Shame Teal'c couldn't make it. My teammate, you ever meet him? I think you'd get along. You got things in common. Like, uh, looming."

"Teal'c's the Jaffa?" Sheppard asks, slouching with his hands in his pockets and his eyes cool and lazy. "They're warriors, related to the Goa'uld, kind of," he says to Ronon, "nearly as strong as the real deal, I heard."

"Like that thing in Caldwell?" Ronon looks interested. "I didn't get a good shot at him then."

"Something like that, right, Mitchell?" Beneath the casual calm, Sheppard's smirking, just slightly competitively.

"Kind of." Cam shrugs off the challenge. Ronon gives him an unreadable look, maybe sizing him up for a fight, or a stew pot, or else checking out his ass; no telling, and the man doesn't say, just dips his head at Sheppard and ambles off to the jumper docked in the left-most bay, flipping his alien pistol around as he goes.

Cam watches him, decides it's not worth asking and glances up at the jumpers instead. "So you could give me a flight?"

"Be my pleasure, if you got time later," Sheppard says. "They handle better than you'd ever believe, just looking. Even if you can't fly it for yourself, you really need to go up in one to appreciate it."

"Thanks. Maybe after we get back, depending on how important whatever Jackson finds turns out to be."

"We got our own mission now anyway. Trade meeting, can't wait. Or else we'd all be coming along, see this black hole go boom ourselves," and Sheppard looks a little jealous.

"It's not going to blow up, not if it goes according to plan," Cam tells him. "At least as far as I get the plan. Which, I'd be the first to admit, isn't that far."

"Advanced wormhole physics not your thing?" Sheppard asks cockily.

"Hell no. That's what we've got Colonel Carter for."

"But there's nukes, I picked up that much." There's a gleam in Sheppard's eyes, like Jackson's when he's in front of a particularly esoteric artifact. "And a Supergate on your end. That's gotta be a sight."

"The gates should be open on both ends for a while to come," Cam says. "Plenty of time to take pictures, if it works."

"It'll work," Sheppard says.

"McKay says so?"

Sheppard shrugs. "Rodney says the whole idea's whacked, but inspired. Not his words, but close enough. He's giving it about a twenty percent chance of success, so it's pretty much guaranteed. Odds that high, it'll be a piece of cake for him."

Sam had given him better odds than that, but then Sam's not the sort to make things out to be more difficult than they are just to look good. "So he'll come through?"

"That, or he'll take out the solar system. But yeah, you can count on McKay. Especially if it gets bad--he's pretty damn amazing under the threat of impending death."

"Makes it worth putting up with him otherwise?"

Sheppard's smile is slanted, hazel-amber eyes easy and opaque, showing nothing. "Just about. You got the lemon, right?"

Cam pulls it out, just as a woman comes jogging up, mocha complexion and exotic auburn hair, and a martial artist by the way she moves, graceful even under a flac vest and canvas pants. "I am sorry, Colonel Sheppard," she says, "Dr. Weir had a final question before our departure. I am ready to go now."

"No problem," Sheppard says, "we're still half an hour early for the rendezvous. Don't want to give them too much of a shock, actually being on time. This is Colonel Mitchell," and he nods towards Cam. "He's leader of SG-1. And this is Teyla, the last member of my team. Not the least, though."

"I am pleased to meet you, Colonel," Teyla says, taking his hand, and if her grip isn't as painful as Ronon's it's still firm enough that Cam would put money on her against Vala. And Sheppard's got that _my-alien-can-beat-up-your-alien_ smirk again. But either of Cam's doctors could so beat up Sheppard's; Sam's a soldier herself and after a decade in the field Jackson might as well be, so hah.

"You will be accompanying Dr. McKay on the Odyssey?" Teyla asks.

"That's my job." Today, anyway.

"It is something of a large responsibility," Teyla says, sounding serious, but the sparkle in her eyes reminds him of Teal'c when his wacky sense of humor surfaces.

"Won't be any problems," Sheppard assures. "Colonel Carter will be around, Rodney's not going to pull anything. And if he does, Mitchell here's citrus-armed and dangerous."

Teyla looks from Cam to her team leader, and back again. "I am sure it will go well. I wish you luck in your mission, Colonel Mitchell."

"Same to you," Cam tells her, and Teyla bows her head and starts toward the jumper Ronon is standing by, arms crossed and more looming than ever. From twenty feet away Cam can feel his impatience.

Sheppard shrugs to Cam. "Yeah, good luck," he says. "Hope this works."

"You and everyone in the Milky Way," Cam says. "But no pressure."

"Just keep telling McKay that, it'll go fine."

"Got it."

"Good." Then Sheppard turns, away from the jumper where his team's waiting, towards Cam. "One more thing."

"Yeah?"

"Like Teyla said, McKay's your responsibility on this one," Sheppard says, and his voice drops so low it's not much above a rasp. "So, if anything happens to him, you're the one responsible."

He's still smiling, but there's no laziness in his gold-green eyes now, and what is there tells Cam everything he really needs to know about Rodney McKay, and the parameters of his mission; tells him that if a grenade gets tossed on the Odyssey's deck, he better throw himself on it before it singes a hair on McKay's head, because that'd ultimately be less painful than what would happen to him when he got back to Atlantis.

Over Sheppard's shoulder he can see Teyla, and Ronon's towering figure, watching from the shadow of the jumper--McKay's teammates, and Cam knows a thing or two about SG teams.

And this is Atlantis, where glittering silver spires still shine bright and untarnished after ten millennia of war, and Sheppard's laid-back cool hides sharp steel and fire, and Cam figures that even if he doesn't get a chance to find out for himself what McKay's got under that blustering ego, at least he can be sure there is something. Maybe just his brains, maybe more; but something that makes the man one of Sheppard's team, as invaluable as Sam and Jackson and Teal'c and even Vala are to Cam's own.

So he means it, when he tells Sheppard, "Got it." And when Sheppard smiles back, tight but satisfied, before giving him a wave and heading towards the jumper without another glance, Cam knows he's been understood.

Not his first choice for an astrophysicist, but someone's, and that's all he needs to know.


End file.
